Publishers have donated 100,000 books to schools in Calabria, Sardinia and Molise

#ioleggoperché is back – the social initiative by the Italian Publishers’ Association (AIE) in support of school libraries. From 7 to 15 November 2026, members of the public, schools, bookshops, publishers, institutions and the media will once again be invited to take part in a major collective project which, over the past ten years, has brought 4.5 million books to more than half of Italy’s schools and involved 4.2 million pupils in the last edition alone. Building on the results achieved, the project’s eleventh edition marks the start of a new phase aimed at strengthening the cultural and social impact of books in schools and local communities, with the aim of increasingly transforming donations into opportunities for reading, participation and personal development.

The initiative is supported by the Ministry of Culture through the Centre for Books and Reading, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Merit, the Italian Library Association (AIB), the Italian Booksellers’ Association (ALI) and the Italian Booksellers’ and Stationers’ Union (SIL). It is supported by the leading national television broadcasters and the major Italian publishing groups.

Nursery schools, primary schools, lower and upper secondary schools, and bookshops can already register on the platform www.ioleggoperche.it: the deadline is 14 October. From 9 September, the usual partnerships between schools and bookshops will begin, and from 7 to 15 November, anyone can buy and donate a book to one of the participating schools.

As in every year, the books donated by members of the public will be joined by 100,000 books donated by publishers, but with one significant new development. After ten years of continuous growth and significant achievements, #ioleggoperché is complementing its original aim – to establish and develop school libraries, bringing more books into schools and helping to nurture new readers – with the realisation that a book is not the end goal, but a starting point. For this reason, the 2026 edition will aim to ensure that the new books give rise to opportunities for reading, activities, projects, and moments of sharing and growth. At the same time, thanks to the data collected over the past ten years, the project will focus part of its efforts on areas that have had fewer opportunities to benefit from it, thereby strengthening its social impact and value for the whole country.

The analysis carried out by the AIE Research Department has in fact highlighted that some areas of Italy have benefited to a lesser extent from the initiative. Using a ranking that combines various indicators – from school participation to the percentage of schools that received at least one donation, and the average number of books donated per school – three regions emerged as having lower levels of participation than the national average: Calabria, Sardinia and Molise. For this reason, this year, at the end of the donation campaign – which, as always, will cover the whole of Italia – the 100,000 books made available by publishers will be allocated to participating schools in these three regions.